Towards Engaging Intangible Holographic Public Displays

Public displays are some of the most challenging interfaces to design because of two key characteristics. First, the experience should be engaging, to attract and maintain users’ attention. Second, the interaction with the display should be natural, meaning that users should be able to receive the desired output with little or no training. Holographic displays are increasingly popular in public spaces such as museums and concert halls but there is little published research on users’ experiences with such displays. Previous research has suggested both tangible and intangible inputs as engaging and natural options for holographic displays, but there is no conclusive evidence on their relative merits. Hence, we run a study to investigate the user experience with a holographic display comparing the level of engagement and feeling of natural experience in the interacting process. We used a mix of surveys, interviews, video recordings, and task-based metrics to measure users’ performance on a specific task, the perceived usability, and levels of engagement and satisfaction. Our findings suggest that a tangible input was reported as more natural than the intangible one, however, both tangible and intangible inputs were found to be equally engaging. The latter findings contribute to the efforts of designing intangible public holographic displays and other interactive systems that take into consideration health safety issues, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic era in which contamination can be established with tangible and physical interaction between users and public displays, yet without affecting the level of engagement compared to the tangible experience

Towards Engaging Intangible Holographic Public Displays

Public displays are some of the most challenging interfaces to design because of two key characteristics. First, the experience should be engaging, to attract and maintain users’ attention. Second, the interaction with the display should be natural, meaning that users should be able to receive the desired output with little or no training. Holographic displays are increasingly popular in public spaces such as museums and concert halls but there is little published research on users’ experiences with such displays. Previous research has suggested both tangible and intangible inputs as engaging and natural options for holographic displays, but there is no conclusive evidence on their relative merits. Hence, we run a study to investigate the user experience with a holographic display comparing the level of engagement and feeling of natural experience in the interacting process. We used a mix of surveys, interviews, video recordings, and task-based metrics to measure users’ performance on a specific task, the perceived usability, and levels of engagement and satisfaction. Our findings suggest that a tangible input was reported as more natural than the intangible one, however, both tangible and intangible inputs were found to be equally engaging. The latter findings contribute to the efforts of designing intangible public holographic displays and other interactive systems that take into consideration health safety issues, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic era in which contamination can be established with tangible and physical interaction between users and public displays, yet without affecting the level of engagement compared to the tangible experience

Eliciting Co-Creation Best Practices of Virtual Reality Reusable e-Resources

Immersive experiential technologies find fertile grounds to grow and support healthcare education. Virtual, Augmented, or Mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) have proven to be impactful in both the educational and the affective state of the healthcare student’s increasing engagement. However, there is a lack of guidance for healthcare stakeholders on developing and integrating virtual reality resources into healthcare training. Thus, the authors applied Bardach’s Eightfold Policy Analysis Framework to critically evaluate existing protocols to determine if they are inconsistent, ineffective, or result in uncertain outcomes, following systematic pathways from concepts to decision-making. Co-creative VR resource development resulted as the preferred method. Best practices for co-creating VR Reusable e-Resources identified co-creation as an effective pathway to the prolific use of immersive media in healthcare education. Co-creation should be considered in conjunction with a training framework to enhance educational quality. Iterative cycles engaging all stakeholders enhance educational quality, while co-creation is central to the quality assurance process both for technical and topical fidelity, and tailoring resources to learners’ needs. Co-creation itself is seen as a bespoke learning modality. This paper provides the first body of evidence for co-creative VR resource development as a valid and strengthening method for healthcare immersive content development. Despite prior research supporting co-creation in immersive resource development, there were no established guidelines for best practices

Virtual reality reusable e-resources for clinical skills training: a mixed-methods evaluation

Virtual reality has long existed, but its wider adoption in education is recent. Studies informed by theoretical underpinned co-creation frameworks and utilization of theoretical informed evaluations are scarce in literature. Thus, this study internationally evaluated the efficacy of three virtual reality reusable e-resources (VRReRs), co-created based on the ASPIRE framework, for teaching clinical skills to university students. The study followed a mixed-methods approach, combining SUS, SUS Presence Questionnaire, TAM, and UTAUT2 with a focus group discussion. Additionally, for one VRReR, a quantitative pre/post evaluation of knowledge and comparison with lecture notes followed. Results demonstrated moderately to highly usability, effectively facilitated a strong sense of presence, confidence while using them, and willingness to continue using VRReRs in the future, while increased knowledge of the learners, highlighted their effectiveness. Although some usability issues were identified, these were considered easy to address. This work evidence, in an international context, that co-created VR resources are highly acceptable and effective, similar to other types of digital or traditional resources developed through participatory inquiry paradigm. By leveraging the benefits of VR technology, VRReRs have the potential to transform and enhance the learning experience in the field of clinical skills, ultimately advancing the digitalization of higher education

Behavioral-Based Cheating Detection in Online First Person Shooters using Machine Learning Techniques

Abstract—Cheating in online games comes with many consequences for both players and companies. Therefore, cheating detection and prevention is an important part of developing a commercial online game. Several anti-cheating solutions have been developed by gaming companies. However, most of these companies use cheating detection measures that may involve breaches to users ’ privacy. In our paper, we provide a serverside anti-cheating solution that uses only game logs. Our method is based on defining an honest player’s behavior and cheaters’ behavior first. After that, using machine learning classifiers to train cheating models, then detect cheaters. We presented our results in different organizations to show different options for developers, and our methods ’ results gave a very high accuracy in most of the cases. Finally, we provided a detailed analysis of our results with some useful suggestions for online games developers

TEAM-IT : Location-Based Gaming in Real and Virtual Environments

Location-based games are an emerging paradigm fortraining, simulation, entertainment, health and many other domains. In this paper, we consider the role of artificialagents in such games. We also examine how human teams perform when given the same game, playedin both a real environment with mobile devices and alsoin a virtual environment that replicates the real environment.We perform the first direct comparison of real andvirtual instantiations of the same location-based game.We show the similarities and differences in game playand then investigate how adding an advice-giving agentchanges the experience

Affective Out-World Experience via Virtual Reality for Older Adults Living with Mild Cognitive Impairments or Mild Dementia

Older adults with cognitive impairments may face barriers to accessing experiences beyond their physical premises. Previous research has suggested that missing out on emotional experiences may affect mental health and impact cognitive abilities. In recent years, there has been growing research interest in designing non-pharmacological interventions to improve the health-related quality of life of older adults. With virtual reality offering endless opportunities for health support, we must consider how virtual reality can be sensitively designed to provide comfortable, enriching out-world experiences to older adults to enhance their emotional regulation. Thirty older adults living with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia participated in the study. Affect and emotional behavior were measured. The usability and the sense of presence were also assessed. Finally, we assessed the virtual reality experiences based on physiological responses and eye-tracking data. The results indicated that virtual reality can positively enhance the mental health of this population by eliciting a positive affective state and enhancing their emotional regulation. Overall, this paper raises awareness of the role of virtual reality in emotion elicitation, regulation, and expression and enhances our understanding of the use of virtual reality by older adults living with mild cognitive impairments or mild dementia

Skyfarer: Design Case Study of a Mixed Reality Rehabilitation Video Game

Abstract. This paper outlines a design case study for Skyfarer, a mixed reality rehabilitation application developed for upper body exercise of individuals aging with disability. We describe how experience, experiential and participatory design methodologies were combined to develop a game, which was publicly exhibited at IEEE VR and ACM SIGGRAPH, and formally evaluated in a biomechanical study at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center RLANRC. Keywords. Mixed reality, virtual reality, rehabilitation, games, experience design, experiential design, participatory design, spinal cord injury Background Chronic shoulder pain is a common secondary condition in manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury (SCI) and it affects up to 70% of the population Internal team analysis confirmed that it was difficult to communicate the qualities of a gesture in two dimensions, even with the addition of drawings, since gesture is a four dimensional action. Rehabilitation movements, in particular, require fine motorcontrol adjustments and enhanced body awareness that is affected by the proprioceptive abilities of the individual. Moreover, every patient has a different level of disability and various degrees of upper-body control. Methods. The first step toward design of a gesture-controlled interactive experience is to capture and analyze the expected movements within the context of the application. Both the quantity (e.g., number of repetitions) and the quality (e.g., trajectory, speed) of movements must be inventoried when working from an existing exercise protocol, such as STOMPS. The interaction designer (Lympouridis) and choreographer (Poulos) led this investigation with an extensive analysis of the movement rehabilitation protocol as it was provided to the patients/clients. This allowed the design team to gain insight and define a set of questions for the biomechanists and therapists, such as the range, velocity, and trajectory of each exercise, the position and alignment of the body, and the requirements for optimal performance. The next step was to visualize the expected motion data from optimally and sub-optimally performed movement phrases which were small, simple and complete motion units with a beginning, middle and end Pattern Discovery Workshop & Focus Groups Since the STOMPS home-based clinical trial did not evaluate quality or quantity of movements performed by the participants 1 , the design team wanted to know how patients performed the movements. It was also important to identify compensatory actions, such as leaning and/or twisting of the back or joints. Moreover, in order to transition to a technology-enabled exercise system, the design team needed to observe how users performed the exercises to determine how much "teaching" and "guiding" was required in the interactive feedback system. To this end, Poulos drew on her expertise in movement pedagogy training and organized a pattern discovery workshop. In addition, the team collected data about the user population's prior gaming experiences drawing on the nurse psychologist's (Jordan-Marsh) expertise in promoting adherence. It is important to note that however "good" or "bad" the participants performed the exercises at home, they performed them "good enough" to receive clinical benefits. Methods. We invited a subset of participants (N=7) who had already participated in the STOMPS clinical trial to come to RLANRC, demonstrate the STOMPS protocol exercises, and participate in a focus group discussion about their prior experience with gaming. This half-day study was video recorded. Poulos conducted a pattern discovery workshop in order to assess participant range of motion, somatic awareness, and compensatory movements Outcomes. The pattern discovery workshop revealed that although participants had performed the exercises many times in the past, they did not remember them well enough to show them spontaneously to our team. Thus, the team demonstrated the movements and asked the physical therapists to issue corrections during subsequent participant performance of the exercises. The choreographer observed that participants lacked somatic awareness for key qualitative aspects of the movement, especially speed, smoothness, start and end points. Participants also lacked movement autonomy and self-correction automation, which was mostly visible by observing their overall distractibility and expectation of directions/corrections under supervision. In addition, the range of motion varied a great deal depending on a participant's injury level (paraplegia vs. tetraplegia). Deficits in fine motor skill and manual dexterity was a complicating factor for executing some of the movements that required manipulation of the Bodylastics. Gotsis then asked participants about the types of games they typically played, their motivations for playing, drawbacks of existing games and asked for comment on the appeal of an initial concept for boat/vessel navigation as part of an exercise game. Focus group discussion audio was transcribed and analyzed by the nurse psychologist. Summary. An ideal system design would enable skipping exercises based on player ability and participant-specific calibration. The gaming experience of this group was fairly limited, but they were enthusiastic about adventure games. It is not clear to what extent gameplay experience was due to lack of awareness of game types, phrasing of questions, or anticipated inability to engage in a game because of physical limitations. Current popular casual games (e.g., Angry Birds) were not mentioned. Quality of the graphics was not a criterion, nor was level of violence embedded in play. Participants noted that playing games changed moods, consumed time, and built satisfaction (mastery/achievement). Goals not mentioned included motivating new behaviors, gaining new knowledge, making decisions, or tracking any behaviors (such as exercise), moods, or relationships. Social interaction goals will require extensive exploration before integration into our game. No participant gave any clue that game play (type, duration, etc.) was a topic in health care intakes or interactions. These observations were taken into account as game design evolved. Rapid Prototypin

The Ledra Palace project: Using emerging technologies to communicate exhibition content - Evaluation of results

During the past couple of decades, museums resort to using innovative technological solutions in their permanent collections or temporary exhibitions aiming to enhance visitor experience. In the current study, we tested three emerging technologies (i.e., Interactive Book, Interactive Table, Immersive Virtual Reality) that were created to show in a museum exhibition, content related to ‘difficult heritage’ and ‘difficult history’. In a questionnaire administrated at the end of the exhibition, visitors were first asked to evaluate whether the content of the exhibition was better communicated through these interactive technologies than through non-technological (conventional) installations, and then to assess the usability of these technologies. Results revealed that technological installations were as engaging and successful in the presentation and communication of the content of the exhibition as the non-technological installations. Finally, with respect to the usability of the above three technological installations, results were remarkably high (Mdn: 87), with all visitors reporting a clear preference for the immersive virtual reality installation. Studies such as the current one support that interactive technologies should not aim to substitute conventional installations but instead, to complement them to enhance visitor experience and provide alternativ